The smell of gardenias
by phantomtraveler1
Summary: With his head held high he picked his duffle bags of the floor, headed for the door and opened along with it Pandora's box of a lifetime of forgotten memories, forgotten pain and the ever present feeling of heartache at the smell of gardenias.
1. Chapter 1

**The smell of gardenias**

 **PROLOGUE**

 **AN:** **Soo, Hiya there! This is my very first fanfiction and I'm very excited to be sharing it with you. By the way, FYI English is not my first language alas if you discover any mistakes I would really appreciate it if you pointed them out to me.**

 **Well… R &R and constructive criticism would be greatly appreciated. Sorry for any possible butchering of your language but like I said, not English soooo bear with me! **

**See the end of the work for ANs bye bye**

 **Disclaimer:** **really people? You think if I owned them I would be here writing. No, no fellas,** _ **This**_ **would be on the damn feels-killer movies. But yeah anyway, you want me to say it fine I don't own anything you might recognize and any resemblance to events from real life or other stories is unintentional.**

 **On with the story, now. Enjoy**

The cold wind was the only thing he was aware of, he couldn't even bring himself to care about the fall, all he could think about was the icy sharp wind that was howling all around him hitting him with no mercy, turning him numb. He stopped screaming a while ago desperately trying to block the air from freezing him from inside too. He has been falling for a while now. When they went over the sematics for the mission it said they would be high but this was ridiculous. Just for how long would he be falling?

And then he hit the ground and suddenly oh how he wished for the wind instead of this. He broke his fall with his left side and he was certain that he would die then, if not anything else the pain would kill him. He closed his eyes, took a deep breath and braved a look down his arm. Immediately he wished he hadn't. His left arm was gone a little up above his elbow. Well that settled it. Cause of death: blood loss. There was just no way he wasn't dying from that even if somehow the fall hadn't managed it. He turned to look down at his arm again. See how much blood he had lost. How long till he died. But his arm wasn't there anymore, a metal monstrosity with a blood red star having taken its place and he wasn't lying in the icy snow but instead strapped to an equally cold metal table and all he could think about was not again and pain and toadlike faces and baby blue eyes with halolike golden hair and then it was all gone and there was nothing but harsh sounding commands and _soldat!_ And _mission report._ And electricity and forgetting again and the man on the bridge _but I knew him, I knew him_ and forgetting and _till the end of the line_ and then gone and NoNoNoNoNo!

He snapped awake, the covers thrown of the bed, cold sweat beading his forehead and running down his spine, tears falling down his face, breathing labored, short gasps instead of breaths coming out of his mouth, his chest contracting and then he couldn't breathe and he shot out of bed almost tripping over the covers but still not, because years of _falling is punishment_ won't let him.He hits then small window frantically opening it pushing out and before he realizes he's on the fire escape doubled over the railing trying to inhale air but instead his nostrils are filled with the metallic scent of blood making his throat close down. He shuts his eyes and then suddenly there is a voice, _his voice_ inside his head holding a small back against his own bigger chest hands over fragile ribs and _Com'n Stevie match my breathing,_ and then the little boy could breathe again and he finds that so can he. He's breathing hard still but years of conditioning and snipping will let his body take care of itself but also years of brainwashing have left his mind scrambled and he needs to write because that was another memory and it was of his little brother, _Stevie_ and not torture so he needs to keep this one. After he has calmed down he straightens up, turning to go back inside. He really needs to do something about these nightmares because even if his years of imprisonment have beat screaming out of him, he is still being careless running out where everyone can see the arm.

After he had written down his latest memory he sets about completing his routing. Collecting the bedsits putting them in the washing machine to wash off the sweat from the previous night's terrors, exercising in the small apartment, making breakfast, eating washing up and getting ready to head out to the public library where he has been spending most of his days these past months, catching up with any history he missed or, well any parts of it he affected. Surprisingly he finds he is not missing much not in the historical or the technological department. Apparently the asset needed technological knowledge to complete its missions. On good days he discovers that all the scientific, technological and engineering facts in his head are subjects he seems to enjoy. On a particularly good day about six months in his hiding after the first time that he slept through the whole night, he changes his routine, going to a local engineering museum. He remembers that day with a newly rediscovered fondness. It was a really good day he even got a memory back. His last night as James Buchannan Barnes of Brooklyn. Before Sergeant Barnes of the 107th, before Barnes the rescued POW, and Captain America's sniper. Before the Winter Soldier, Red Room's most feared agent and before Hydra's Asset. With so many different personas his head is a mess most of the time but that day it all seemed to sort out and as he was walking around the exhibition he remembered another one with big bright lights and a pretty dame hanging of his arm another following and Stevie behind him, watching Howard's flying car with fascination.

Memories of Steve have been coming back more and more lately so much so that he even considered giving in and going back, putting both Steve and himself out of their misery. Steve from looking for him with no success and himself from having to follow Steve wherever he thought he might be next, watching over his little brother's reckless ass like he always has been. Killing whoever threatens his family before they even get a chance to do so. The willingness to kill for his own haven't gone anywhere either. He doesn't know whether he should be concerned or not. Being an assassin for over six decades tends to bury any empathy left for even potential threats. Although there was always the dark shadow larking behind his icy blue eyes even back then. He was just able to hide it behind a cocky smirk, charm and dancing moves. In the war he didn't have to anymore. Steve had seen it a couple of times, Becca too.

This last recon mission Steve has gone to was the last straw. Steve had started getting desperate, getting careless. It was getting harder and harder for him to protect the punk.

So, guess, it was time to turn himself in. Steve would be happy, the optimistic bastard. Well that was all it ever was about though. Making sure his family was happy and safe. Steve would soon find out that his older brother wasn't a ball of sunshine anymore but at least this way he could prevent him from going on suicide missions without cover. Who knows he might even get a second chance at happiness or well just being content would do since he very much doubts he can ever be happy with all that baggage he now carries. He might even find out what that emptiness and heartache he feels from time to time is. That thing had started getting bothersome. He couldn't pinpoint exactly where it was coming from, get even a thread of what it might be about and it was starting to seriously concern him. He found himself doing random things at random places, like passing a florists shop, catching a whiff of gardenias and almost doubling over from the pain the memory caused him. It wasn't a flashback, not a memory and all he knew was that the pain wasn't like pain from Hydra or Red Room treatments. It was something a lot more…. Heartbreaking rather than… well bone breaking. Sometimes he wondered if he had someone other than family waiting back home for him. There wasn't anything about a girlfriend or fiancée or anything of the short at the museum. He would just have to ask Steve then and hope that he had an answer

So it seemed like Bucky Barnes was going home after all. Not like it would be difficult. Steve lived at the Stark/Avengers tower nowadays. That wouldn't prove to be a problem; he had broken in more secure buildings before. Stark may be deluding himself that his tower was the most secure in the planet but guess, he has never had the Winter Soldier breaking in before.

To the Stark Tower it was then. He got up from his spot in the corner in the library looked around the place for a last time and set course for the apartment. He had some packing to do.

AN/

So I know this isn't very action filled or dark and generally doesn't have much of anything happening but it's the prologue. I promise it gets better. Please come back and read more.

This is my very first fanfiction so constructive criticism is always welcomed.

Thank you for reading


	2. Chapter 2

**CHAPTER 1**

 **AN:** **Hi there again to those of you who decided to keep up with my story and indulge me on my tries of writing fiction. Hope you enjoy**

 **Disclaimer:** **Sorry to say fellas but still very much not mine I am just kidnapping and using them for my own personal evil causes.**

 **Don't forget R &R **

He had finished packing a while ago but he still found himself standing in the middle of the small apartment. It hadn't anything to do with getting attached to the place. No just what it represented. Six months ago he was in a different one in a different city, with no sense of self just trying to stay away from Hydra because even though nothing made sense then one thing was clear. There was no way in hell he was going back to those bastards. Going back to the chair. He didn't remember Steve then, didn't really care to try to either but through all the shitstorm he had somehow discovered a choice. A choice of going back to the simple mindset of the Asset denying the burden of choices, actions and consequences or escaping. From the pain, from the hollowness, the emptiness and perhaps getting revenge from those who had been using and abusing him for so long.

He chose to leave.

And that might seem like an easy choice but it was nothing like that.

For decades and decades he did nothing but obey orders or in the rare case he didn't ( _flaming red, sparkling blond, chestnut, maroon and black hair in tight buns, small lithe and lethal bodies twirling around or fighting against him. A new purpose. Protect, teach, keep safe,_ _ **love**_ _)_ there was always punishment and ways of regaining the Asset.

Consciously deciding to leave, to abandon his sole purpose for existing up until then had been one of the hardest things he had ever done. And he says one of, because he didn't remember everything yet and he had a feeling that there were things that had required huge effort. He decided, and wasn't that a game changer, that instead of going back to things being easy and simple if only because he didn't, because he wasn't _capable_ of, caring for anything, he would take control and along with that he would accept any kind of challenges and pain that were thrown his way simply because he could.

If you asked him, to this day, six months in his recovery he still couldn't tell you what made him do that. He honestly doesn't remember much of the Insight day. He couldn't pinpoint what it was that made him jump in after Steve, leave him on the riverside, head to the bank and instead of complying, killing every fucker in the establishment .

Other than catching up on everything he missed, these past few months he read up on every psychological research that has been carried throughout the years and tried to come to terms with everything.

Not to say that he felt any less guilty about everything but still, he had managed to kind of come to terms with the situation as messed up as it was. He even started acting as a functional human again. He knew that the detachment wasn't healthy but that way he managed to kind of forgive himself or at least make peace. One of the researches on guilt said something like, imagine yourself as an observer. Look at the reflection in the mirror, see the pain in the eyes and imagine seeing them on someone else. They look like a mess don't they, the first thing you think is the poor kid because guilt and pain have a way of making people look younger. The second reaction might be to try to reassure, help perhaps even a primal desire to hurt whoever put the hurt in that broken kid's eyes. That is all instinctual and then you think. So while thinking, could you really look dead on those painfilled eyes and say _**I blame you.**_ You most probably couldn't since you're actually feeling the guilt in the first place. So think back to the kid you were and forgive. Don't try to make excuses no just accept that yes what you did was bad but at the end of the day it was a mistake, a mistake that cost nevertheless but still a mistake.

That's kind of what he did. Of course he _kind of_ did everything because there wasn't actually anything that applied exactly to his case. He knew that he was brainwashed, he knew that he didn't have a choice and that when he did there were repercussions, he got that he did. And he could give himself at least that. But that was when he was thinking clearly. After waking up with the copper smell of blood and the sound of screams filling his ears it wasn't exactly easy to remember that.

Anyway though, he had sort of forgiven himself and he had tried to find out what could have possibly made him act like that that day.

In the end he had come up empty handed other than that it might have been his subconsciousness trying to fulfil promises he made years ago. _**Till the end of the line,**_ and _**Don't**_ _ **worry mum**_ _ **I'll come home and you and the girls can try to marry me off then**_ and _**I'll get you out of here**_ _ **malen'kiye zvezdy.**_ Those and other ones he couldn't remember but knew he had made. In the end whatever it was it had made him regain the reins of his life. It was what made him fight for a self he lost ages ago and the fight to create a new one.

It was what made him stand here in the middle of a bare apartment delaying leaving. Because leaving meant dealing with and confronting Steve and his crazy group of mismatched heroes. But he could do that. He could keep one of his many promises and he could try to remember all the others he forgot.

So with his head held high he picked his duffle bags of the floor, headed for the door and opened along with it Pandora's box of a lifetime of forgotten memories, forgotten pain and the ever present feeling of heartache at the smell of gardenias.

 **AN:** **Oof. God this chapter took forever to write. Anyway hope you enjoyed . Next up comes the meeting with Steve and hopefully we start seeing a little action. Till next time**

 **Phantom traveler out**


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 2:**

 **AN:** **Hiii people so I always thought that writing a story as long as you had ideas would be something fairly easy. Who was wrong?** _ **This girl!**_ **I have all these ideas about where I want this story to go and I know exactly what I want to make happen but….** _ **Daaaammnnn…**_ **actually writing especially the first few introductory chapters is freaking hard.**

 **Anyway I wanted to say a special THANK YOU to my first EVER reviewer** scottiedog **and let you know that if you are keeping up with this story** **I am going to be continuing it just that there is not particularly stable updating program yet.**

 **Disclaimer: you know the drill people. If I had them I wouldn't be bothering with this. You would actually see it. Just my humble try of letting out repressed feels that waiting for the next ones is causing.**

'' _It is starting to get cramped in here_ '' Bucky thought while shifting due to trying to find a different way to sit in the crowded little train wagon. He didn't know what he had been thinking actually getting a ticket for a _freaking train_. Even though it was his final option for hopefully safe and quick travelling driving would have definitely been better than being confined in a small, fast paced cubicle pressed up against strangers. Actually scratch that. Walking would have been better and it wasn't exactly out of his realm of capabilities.

It wasn't even the fact that it was a train. He had to carry out missions on trains as The Asset before. It wasn't any sense of connection with The Fall that made him uneasy. It wasn't even the enclosed space, although admittedly it wasn't exactly helping. No what was making him want to recoil and press himself up against the nearest sturdy surface ( _never did though. Keep straight, eyes on the ground, every sign of weakness means pain and that he had become a master at avoiding it)_ was, how crowded it was in there, and then not even the actual crowd, rather what it meant for an enhanced human to be in the middle of a sweaty, shifting, heavy breathing, bathed in perfumes one.

His years as an assassin had trained him to not only be neutral while in crowds but to actively seek them out, after all, what better than getting lost in a constantly moving, ever changing mass of unaware bodies. That however had nothing to do with the fact that he not only had enhanced senses but he was also a sniper and the only thing that his current situation was accomplishing was putting all his senses in overdrive and while he could shut away the parts that were constantly moving in his head he wasn't exactly fond of what would come after. When he was able to breathe again in the relative peace and quiet he could afford these days. He hated the nightmares and the night terrors and the panic attacks and the constant feeling of emptiness in his head, but most of all he hated the flashbacks and the fact that after they were over he was turned into a big mess of tangled up emotions, nostalgia and sorrowful mess, longing for things and people long lost never to be seen again. He really wasn't looking forward to the one that was definitely coming right up after he had reached a secure location.

 _A secure location_. Did that mean going back to staying in cheap and crappy motels, or maybe relocating in central park and making a bed out of a park bench? Did it, could it, mean going back to Steve? Was that even something he could do. '' _That's what you came here for. You aren't in this fucking perfume trap for fun''._ There was that too. Okayyy so decision number one of the beginning of the rollercoaster extraordinaire featuring Steve Rodgers and his band of misfit heroes, has been made. He was going to Steve. _Now whether he was actually going to stay with Steve,_ that was another subject. One he did not need to worry about right now. He had plenty of time to make spontaneous, impulsive, emotioned-fuelled decisions when he saw Steve again. _'' You know if he were articulate and not in the midst of a panic attack triggered by Steve's overexcitable, bone crashing hug''_ See? This is what happens when you spend six months by yourself. You become your personal devil's advocate. God he hated that.

Anyway back to the point. Psyching one's own self up in order to meet your best friend/brother that had somehow been frozen along with you in the next century (and wouldn't they be having words about Steve's god forsaken self-sacrificing tendencies) while simultaneously trying to reestablish a sense of self wasn't, surprise of surprises, exactly easy.

Good heavens wouldn't it be fun trying to find a place in society that didn't ask for mass murder and international terrorism.

The train was slowly but surely coming to a stop. This was it.

The train stopped, the mechanical voice came through the wagon speakers letting them know that the passengers for New York, Manhattan had reached their destination. He got up ( _finally_ ) reached for his duffle bags and got out of the little room. He walked down the hallway with something almost akin to trepidation, almost akin to anticipation but not quite either. He got off the train, out of the station, up the stairs and then was welcomed by the frenzy that was Manhattan. He looked up and saw the Stark/Avengers Tower, took a deep breath and started walking towards the place where answers, where _**Steve**_ was.

So. He has been standing at the corner of the Tower for the past thirty minutes not able to make himself go in. He was actually pretty sure Stark's AI (yes he knew about that, best assassin of the century remember?) has spotted him by now.

He looked around seeing the ever moving sea of people around him. Say what you want about New Yorkers but caring they are not, you have to at least grant them that.

He watched the people pass him by, going through the motions and routine and suddenly it was like for a second the sort-circuits that resembled his mind were sorted out and he knew. He wanted that. He wanted to have a routine again, to go through the motions of going someplace only to long for the moment when you get back home. He knew he couldn't have normal not now, not ever but he could damn well try to settle for the next best thing. He knew he didn't feel that he deserved it but if nothing else has stayed the same, the fact that James Buchannan Barnes always has been a selfish bastard is still the same. He used to take care of Steve before and after Sarah passed not out of the goodness of his heart but because by that time he was already too attached to Steve to lose him. Same reason as to why he refused the honorable discharge. Same reason why he…

 _ **JAMES NOOOOO!**_

It was like he was struck by lightning. Something flashed through his brain. A memory, he knew, but by the time he regained his wits he knew it was too late, the memory was gone. The pain that accompanied it however was another matter. How he hated it when this sort of shit happened. Don't get him wrong he was grateful that the memories were intertwined with their respective emotions and he wasn't just a spectator of his life (again). But come on. This whole tantalizing him with bits and pieces that lacked content business was starting to get old. Not to mention quite tiresome

God he needed to lean on something or he would fall over any minute. He knew the drill by know. Way back when (six months ago), his two halves of a brain had actually decided to collaborate with each other and he had sat down and made a protocol for each category of memories. This one that created even more questions for Steve to answer featured, well no, featured would imply that he knew or at the very least recalled the face of who it was, the unnamed, unknown woman who sometimes screamed, sometimes sung and sometimes talked softly. And always called him James. There was that too. He doesn't think that anyone other than his Ma and Grandma Barnes ever called him that regularly, but the woman seemed to address him only as James.

Lord he hated it when she screamed. It always sent such a crushing wave of pain and regret and sorrow through him that he had to lean on something for a second. Of course let's not forget about the remorse, about the guilt. God he prayed she wasn't screaming because he hurt her. He didn't know who she was but he liked to call her Nephilim. His fallen angel. He didn't know why but it seemed fitting.

She screamed no this time. And it wasn't the kind of no, _No James you can't just keep on punching everyone who rubs you and Steve the wrong way._ It was the kind of no that was associated with Stevie's no when he fell. It was full of pain and anger and disbelief and he really couldn't remember for the life of him what he could have done before the Asset that called for that sort of reaction. He had his suspicions of course. He thought that Nephilim might have been part of his old unit. Women weren't really allowed in the field especially on the front lines back then but there were always exceptions, Carter being the most well-known one.

But he didn't really want to believe in this theory because that would mean that Steve more than likely would be unable to give him an answer, and he needed an answer on this one.

Someone bumped in on him as they were rushing buy knocking him back in the here and now. He shook his head to try and clear it ( it never worked but who gave a damn) and took a deep breath. He pushed thoughts of Nephilim aside. No need to worry, what with his insomnia and being in a new environment he would most definitely have lots of time tonight to revisit the topic.

He started walking. He reached the building. He pushed the door and was immediately swarmed with the noise that seemed to follow the Starks through the centuries. He knew he was recognized. The clerk next to the elevator for which he was heading seemed to have zeroed in on him. The guy just nodded his head and pointed to the elevator. He went in. The doors closed and he just knew that they wouldn't be stopping for passengers. He lifted his head and stared straight on to the doors.

'' _**Srg. Barnes we've been expecting you for a while. Captain Rodgers as the other Avengers are on the main floor where you are heading''**_

'' Thank you'' he replied. He had been expecting the AI but that thing was still surprising.

'' _**If I may Srg?''**_

'' Of course'' he replied not knowing what the robot could possible want to say.

'' _ **Welcome home''**_


End file.
